Robben Island

On Saturday I visited Robben Island. An island that had served as a prison for many years until it was shut down in the 90's. Robbben Island is most famous because it is the place where Nelson Mandela was held captive for 18 years of his life.
To be honest, the tour itself was pretty boring, I fell asleep on the ferry and the tour bus twice (I'm blaming that on jet lag lol). And lets not even talk about the sea sickness...ahhhh. After we got off the tour bus and went into the actual prison grounds it was pretty amazing to see the type of conditions that the prisoners were subjected to. They were held in a large room made for 50 but would hold up to 100 prisoners at a time. Since there were so many they would sleep on pads on the floor. There was a communal bathroom in each room that contained only 3 toilets.
Mr. Mandela and the other political leaders were not afforded such luxuries. They were held in solitary confinement where they were locked up in a small cell at 3pm not to be let out until 5am the next morning. During the day they were allowed a small window of time to play tennis. They would communicate with the rest of the prisoners by hiding notes in tennis balls and hitting them over the walls. I will post some pictures (pilfered from my peers) later on.
The best part of the tour was the tour guide for the prison. He was an actual former prisoner who had been held at Robben island in his youth for political activism. It was interesting to hear his personal story about his time there. Unfortunately, the interesting part was only about 40 minutes of a 3 hour tour AND we didn't have time to look around on our own OR buy souvenirs...hmph! Overall, though it is one experience that I'm thankful to have the chance to have had, I will never do it again.
God Bless!
Sae

Camera, where art thou?

Unfortunately, my camera has going missing so I will be unable to post pictures from this point on. =(

Townships

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go into the townships that surround the city of Capetown. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. One of the first images that comes to mind when I think of the experience is one of a pink cement house about the size of a room with half of a tin roof and the other half covered with a tarp that was being held down by strategically placed rocks. This is followed by blocks and blocks of similar-looking houses with people milling about everywhere. As we're passing through the neighborhood the tour guide is explains to us that entire families, sometimes up to three generations share such tight conditions. She also explains that the older children will sometimes build shacks behind the house to sleep in when space becomes to tight.
After a few stop in front of a few tall buildings that house multiple families know has hostels. We go inside and are in a small room, the tour guide explains to us that this room is common room shared by different families living in the same apartment. There are two cement picnic tables and a leaking sink in the corner. Off of the common area or 4 bedrooms rooms and a small kitchen that I originally though was a pantry. Each bedroom has at 3, and up to 4, beds packed into it. We are told that one bed often houses one family so there can sometimes be 3 families sharing one ROOM. That means there can be twelve families in one of these small, unmaintained apartments.The most shocking thing about the whole situation was that these hostels are government subsidized housing where the tenants pay rent charged per BED.
I go outside to get some fresh hair and there are children playing in the courtyard which is an area of dirt with abandoned cars, shopping carts and other debris that have been dumped there. The children are using and old shopping cart and a cardboard box to play a game. When I told them I was from the States they started singing Justin Bieber and asked me if I knew him. I told them "no" and they allowed me to take some pictures with them and a video of them singing an Africa song.
After this experience, I must say that I have truly been humbled and I definitely have a greater appreciation for my life. It also has made me realize just how lucky we are to live in a place where there is system in place to assist people who are unable to provide for themselves in a way that does not further victimize and take advantage of them. Definitely counting my blessings!
Stay Blessed!

Some pics =)

Some pics of South Africa from the plane and the house

We made it !

So my first impressions of Capetown so far is that its a beautiful city. There is a huge mountain called Devil's Peak that kind of overlooks the city. On the way here we past by some of the black townships and I can tell already that this is going to be a humbling experience for me. We are going to do a tour of the townships tomorrow so I can give a detailed description with pictures of course =)
Just arrived at the house in Capetown. Its beautiful =) and HUGE. I'm sharing a room with 4 other people but it's not so bad considering that the rooms are a pretty decent size. The house is FULLY staffed, there's cooks, housekeeping, security. I could get used to this...=D

My thoughts on the plane...

These are my thoughts as I was on the longest plane ride ever. South Africa is 6 hours head of USA! So I pretty much lost 6 hours on the ride over here.
7/30/10 On the plane
I have been on the plane for 6 hours yet I feel as if I have been on the plane for 2 days! My first flight experience thus far has been a fairly smooth one. I got a little naseaous during the takeoff but once we got in the air I felt pretty good. I've been sleeping and watching movies, Thank God for the individual T.V's cause I was getting restless after the 1st hour lol. Gonna take a nap now...

No sweat...

So it's July first and I have 29 days until I take my first flight (of 20 hours ahhh) to the other side of the world. Things are starting to heat up and I realize that there's a lot still left to do. Seeing as how I generally tend to be a last minute person I should be able to get these last few things taken care of without breaking a sweat. Hmmm, on second thought, maybe I need to get my Degree ready...